After nine years living in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, I'm now living in the French Alps. The natives seem friendly ...guess I'll stick around a while.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

We are planning a trip to the USA this summer. The main goal is to see family, but JP and I also want to take the kids camping. Years ago, before the kids were born, he and I did a couple of big camping trips, driving around the western US and stopping to pitch our tent wherever took our fancy. It was amazing. We saw Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon and lots more. We vaguely agreed that one day we would come back and show it all to our kids, if we ever had any. We never dreamed there'd be four of them, but there you go. At least they'll be lots of help pitching the tents.I have already gotten out the atlases and travel guides, thinking that we could use our preparations as informal US geography lessons. So far, the kids love it. They are so excited, trying to figure out where we can go and what we can see. Well, everyone except Mallory. She was the only one that didn't seem at all excited. In fact, her eyes were full of tears that first day."How long are we going camping?" she demanded tremulously."Well three or four weeks. It depends. What's wrong?"She burst into tears. After some coaxing and hugging, the problem came to light. "What about Grammy and Grampy? We won't have time to see them!"She was very concerned that the delights of touring America was distracting the rest of us from the main event: time with her grandparents. We all rushed to assure her that we'd spend at least as long with my parents. But she'd just rather skip the whole camping thing. I even hinted that a trip to Disneyland could be in the works. No deal. (Her twin sister would sell both her parents into slavery for a chance at Disneyland!) I also proposed that we get my Dad to camp with us a bit, but that didn't help. "Bridget couldn't come! She could get lost!" Mallory said indignantly. (Bridget is my parents' Wheaten Terrier.)We are still working out the details, but Mal has consented to go with us. What finally sold her was Giant Redwoods. We'll definitely be making a stop in northern California!